Salt (novel)
First edition
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| Author | Adam Roberts |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Science fiction novel |
| Publisher | Gollancz |
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Publication date
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20 June 2000 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 248 pp |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 50198947 |
| 823/.92 21 | |
| LC Class | PR6118.O23 S25 2001 |
Salt is a novel by British science fiction author Adam Roberts.
Colonists from Earth set out for a distant planet, but during the voyage, a factional skirmish turns into an irrevocable grudge, to play out during the course of their colonisation. Rough settlements are soon constructed around the sterile salt environment, yet old tensions quickly develop into war between two of these settlements, the rigid military dictatorship of Senaar and the Als anarchy.
The novel explores the motivations of their warfare, and the viewpoints of the two narrators illuminate a dreadful, entwined inevitability. In all aspects of theme, setting, character development and prose style, Salt is a very stark, austere composition.
Salt is narrated from the dual perspective of central characters Barlei and Petja, who function as representatives of Senaar and Als, respectively. Barlei is a senior military official—effectively a dictator—beholden to the well-defined hierarchy of the colony of Senaar. Petja, a wayfaring Alsist to begin with, hardens into a charismatic terrorist, resolved to resist a Senaar campaign that uses ever flimsier pretexts to continue destruction of the Als collective.
Reviewing the novel for Infinity Plus, Stuart Carter writes, "Doris Lessing and Iain Banks collaborate to rewrite The Dispossessed, and do a better job of it than anyone might reasonably hope! OK, so it's not exactly a blockbuster by-line but, please, trust me on this one—Salt is a moving, intelligent and great book." He adds that Petja and Barlei
"recount both sides of their arrival and descent into war in alternating passages. It's a classic device and Salt shows why it's still a popular one. There's a beautiful and simultaneously frustrating dichotomy between the two of them. Both narrators are consumed with themselves: one because he sees all people as individuals and therefore inherently important, the other because he is Leader of his people and therefore inherently important. Barlei's sections are the more interesting to read because of the quite breathtaking doublespeak he employs—George Orwell would have been proud. On the flipside, Petja's sections are interesting in their own right but lack the outrageous black humour of Barlei's."
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